Sunshine State Tour -Days 3 and 4

Day 3: March 3, 2019 Lake Wales to Lake Louisa State Park https://www.floridastateparks.org/parks-and-trails/lake-louisa-state-park

Our ride today was LONG. The first part was quite rural and we covered 40 miles by lunch. We stopped at a Baptist church which had a nice shady pavilion near Davenport to eat lunch.

an excellent lunch spot and a great place to wait for the hottest part of the day to pass

Our route took us close to the Orlando area and there was constant traffic. Luckily, since Florida doesn’t need to spend much money fixing potholes they build nice wide sidewalks along their roads- even when there is no residential presence. We rode those since there were very few pedestrians.

Thanks, Florida Dept. of Transportation!

We finally made it to Lake Louisa State Park after 68 long, hot miles. At the campground office, the host looked very sorry when she told us our campsite was an additional three miles on hilly park roads.

Welcome to Florida hill country. Great. At least we managed to get a reservation a few days ago which guaranteed us a site. Tom set up our tent and I cooked some fajitas and Spanish rice which we devoured. The campground was beautiful and very quiet. The stars were shining. We might have been the only tent among many RV’s. Every campsite was full. It rained off and on throughout the night, but we never got the big storms which had been forecast.

-long shadows as we finally arrive at the state park

lakes and hills and range land in between

Day 4: March 4, 2019 Lake Louisa State Park to Mount Dora, Florida
44.7 miles
After yesterday’s long mileage we decided to ride less today and have a half-

one of the 1400 named lakes in Lake County, Florida

hanging out by the library

live oak and Spanish moss in Monteverde

rest day in the afternoon. Apparently, we are still in hill country which until yesterday I didn’t know existed in Florida. We rode past lots of small lakes ( there are 1400 named lakes in this county) and up and down numerous small hills. Monteverde (pop. 1463) sits at an elevation of 108 feet. It is considered a mountain here. After all that flat riding it was actually a tiny bit hard to climb to the town center.

We saw two beautiful Sandhill Cranes as we rode out of Astatula.  Check out this video Tom made while riding by those cranes.

Our destination for the night is Mount Dora which is a cool little tourist town on Lake Dora. The downtown has shops similar to those in Martha’s Vineyard or any other seaside town. At 184 feet above sea level it qualifies as a mount in Florida. It was settled in 1874 and still has some beautiful old houses and hotels. The railroad ran right through the town. We are staying at an Inn and our tent is drying in the yard.  We had a delicious dnner at a Mediterranean restaurant and a good night's sleep at the Inn.